The more things change...

Heywood wrote:

Scrat wrote:
Heywood seemed to be offering his support to "gays" without consideration of the facts or the actual arguments they are making. I have done and am doing differently. That was my point.

Scrat, your starting to split hairs here.

No, I wasn't "splitting hairs" I was trying to understand what you wrote. Perhaps I understood it wrongly, but not by intent. You wrote:

Quote:

Now, if they got exactly the same benefits and treatment as hetero couples and the only thing different is simply the title, then maybe I'll tell them to chill out a bit (at that point, it'll just be semantics), but even then I'll see their point and respect it.

This to me sounded like a commitment to lend your support to them regardless of the facts. In reading it again, I can see that you may have meant it in another way than I took it, but it was to this that I was replying. I was not making an issue of your lack of knowledge, but of what read to me like a disinterest therein; as if you would "see" and "respect" their point no matter what the actual facts were.

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Scrat wrote:

Quote:
Now, if they got exactly the same benefits and treatment as hetero couples and the only thing different is simply the title, then maybe I'll tell them to chill out a bit (at that point, it'll just be semantics), but even then I'll see their point and respect it.

This to me sounded like a commitment to lend your support to them regardless of the facts. In reading it again, I can see that you may have meant it in another way than I took it, but it was to this that I was replying. I was not making an issue of your lack of knowledge, but of what read to me like a disinterest therein; as if you would "see" and "respect" their point no matter what the actual facts were.

Your misunderstanding me again.
I said "I'll see their point and respect it".
Their point being that regardless of getting to the level where they are entitled to all the same rights as hetero couples, they would still want to be officially "married" with the title of "marriage".

So- They want absolute equality, in every respect, even in title.
My response to that is: "Fine, I respect that. Some people want complete and total equality. Personally, if I were them, I'd just be happy with equal rights".

How in any sense is that "a commitment to lend my support to them regardless of the facts". As you say?

I'm lending them respect and understanding of their argument, although I personally dont' see a requirement for the title of "marriage" itself if everything else is equal.

I don't think I can be more clear than that. Am I confusing anyone else? Can someone help Scrat out here or something?

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Heywood - Perhaps you should scan up and read the part where I wrote that I may have misunderstood you, instead of castigating me for misunderstanding you. Rolling Eyes

And this much I do get: You think that gays should be entitled to a union called "marriage" IF THAT's WHAT THEY WANT, even if they could have a "civil union" that afforded them complete equality under the law.

THAT is the position you are ready to support, "no matter what".

Ummmm, okay... ?!? Confused

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Scrat wrote:

Heywood - Perhaps you should scan up and read the part where I wrote that I may have misunderstood you, instead of castigating me for misunderstanding you.

And this much I do get: You think that gays should be entitled to a union called "marriage" IF THAT's WHAT THEY WANT, even if they could have a "civil union" that afforded them complete equality under the law.

THAT is the position you are ready to support, "no matter what".

Jesus Christ... this is getting absurd. And I said your misunderstanding me "again" because I feel that you misunderstood me before.

I will support..."No matter what"... that they have every right to argue for not just equal rights, but the desire for complete and absolute equality. I see their point of view, and "I get it".

Personally, I would be fine with just equal rights (which they are not getting yet). After that point, IF I WERE THEM, I would not bother to bicker over the title of "marrage".

Now, if they want to take it a step further and go for that, thats their choice.

Lets not lose sight of the forest for the trees here, man.

Give them equal rights. The end.

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Heywood wrote:

Give them equal rights. The end.

Of course, but then they already have those, as I've stated. Cool

The issue here really isn't whether they have "equal rights", but whether the rights they share in equally adequately address their needs as citizens. I think that they do not, which is why I support same-gender unions in my state, and the legal recognition of those unions from other states.

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Who stands to lose the most money if every single pair of Americans in this country got married and started filing joint returns? Or have wills giving everything to their legal spouse? How is marriage ruined if gays enter into it? How is your life ruined if two men or two women can get married and enjoy all the benefits therein? How is society made less moral and less stable by allowing gays to marry?

So long as the state decrees that it must have a license from those who get married, the institution is a civil one, not religious. As such, a civil institution discriminating based on sex or gender is in violation of the 14th Amendment. The law allowing for gays to marriage all ready exists. They should have been more specific when they wrote the 14th Amendment, but it is too late now. Gays getting married isn't even civil disobedience. The 14th amendment tells them they are entitled to the same civil liscence as any other two Americans.

Our lawmakers are very much aware of this. Otherwise they would have been declaring martial law in SF and other cities all ready. So please, do notice how they are pussyfooting around this issue. They are doing so because they know they don't have a legal leg to stand on, and that to attack gay marriage blatantly is to expose themselves as being against the Bill of Rights.

Priceless. This may be the least bloody civil rights movement going. It is a test to the former advances we have made, is what it is. And if we are really the enlightened free society we claim to be, it should hardly make any waves.

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separate but equal is a fallacious argument that bussing and schooling demonstrated nicely.

Anything separate is inherently NOT equal. And for that matter, if a civil union has identical rights and benefits as a marriage, then isn't a marriage a civil union, which of course, means that a civil union is a marriage.

Trying to make a distinction here is bald-faced ignorant prejudiced. So long as the state requires a license, the institution is a civil one, and therefore all Americans have the right to the same protections under the law. There is no getting around this fact embedded in our Bill of Rights.

IF you don't like it too bad. Otherwise, you better back off on the attack on the Bill of Rights. They are our rights too. And who are you to be saying who gets what anyway? The government supposedly can't do it, and neither can you.

You are either for the Bill of Rights or against it here. Remember, it is the STATE demanding a license, not the Church. The state created the discrimination in the first place, and the Bill of Rights exposes it. It just took Americans a little time to grow up and get around to the truth here.

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And while yes, it is a wedge issue that deters attention away from the war and corruption in the White House that I am sure was started for this reason and this reason alone, it is also backfiring into a bonafide civil rights movement that is long overdue in this country. The gays just decided it was within their rights as human beings to get married if they want to, and the Bill of Rights agrees with them. Far from being a distraction, it is going to be the tidal wave that washes all that Christian Right filth back into the mud from which it sprang. Trying to just say no precipitated the coming "crisis". The Righties have only themselves to blame here if they don't like not being able to control it anymore. Each new state that jumps on board is making a Constitutional Amendment more and more unlikely, an amendment that the USSC will have no choice but to shoot down anyway because it is codifying discrimination into the Constitution, and the Constitution is quite specific about this. All powers not listed to federal government or state government fall to the people.

Now if you start arguing about that, I'd say you need to be sent off to Africa or something, where you might gain a better perspective.

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Seems to me that gays have equal rights in the matter of marriage now. Any person, gay or straight, has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex whether they choose to exercise that right or not. To give gays the right to marry and not afford heterosexual same sex roommates, a brother/sister, etc. the same right would make the process unequal.

In the matter of right to inheritance, hospital visitation, insurance etc., of course communities should provide legal processes for that. But why can't it be called something other than marriage which for thousands of years has meant a union of a man and woman?

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Umbagog - Take a deep breath, and then try to understand that you are arguing with NO ONE. Nobody here is taking the position you are attacking. So, while it may feel nice to drone on and on about it, what's your point? That your position on this is heart-felt and that you prefer to assume that anyone who disagrees with you holds an unworthy opinion for contemptible reasons?

The "separate but equal" plaint doesn't work for me. In the actual historical cases to which we're referring, the ruling was (rightly so) that you can't provide separate and distinct PHYSICAL resources (schools, etc.) and call it "equal", because you've denied everyone an equal opportunity to go to ANY school in the system and because no two schools offer an identical educational experience. The inequality of the separation was inherent in the fact that we're talking about separate PHYSICAL entities. Assuming you write the laws around them correctly, there is no reason that civil unions and marriages could not carry IDENTICAL (read: EQUAL) rights and privileges under the law. There is no rational justification for the notion that calling it this or that can or will have any bearing on how it is legally defined. Call same-gender unions "marriage" and a state could still write into law differences in treatment for those marriages. (Or it is at least no more or less likely than in the case of same-gender "civil unions".)

I have no dog in this race, but I am convinced that those who do are doing themselves a disservice by focusing on the issue of what these unions are called, when they should be working to ensure that the laws surrounding these new unions--as they are created--ensure that they are in fact treated fairly and equally as compared to traditional marriages under the law.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Seems to me that gays have equal rights in the matter of marriage now. Any person, gay or straight, has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex whether they choose to exercise that right or not.

Thank you for "getting" that very obvious point. It seems to be eluding so many in these discussion and in society at large.

Of course, as I wrote above, I do think that we need to create a new right for civil unions which is blind on the issue of gender (or modify the existing legal definition of "marriage") to better address the needs of a greater number of citizens.

If historical marriage only allowed for marrying someone who was within 3 years of your age, it would not have allowed my wife and I to marry. I would think that wrong and look to have it changed, but not by arguing that others had a right which I lacked, but rather by arguing that the right we all shared was too narrowly defined without a compelling reason for being so.

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Scrat wrote:

Heywood wrote:
Give them equal rights. The end.

Of course, but then they already have those, as I've stated.

No, they do not.

Look here, and please give it a read, if you haven't already. It maps it out in detail.
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/og97016.pdf

If you don't see that by now, I don't know if you ever will.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Seems to me that gays have equal rights in the matter of marriage now. Any person, gay or straight, has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex whether they choose to exercise that right or not. To give gays the right to marry and not afford heterosexual same sex roommates, a brother/sister, etc. the same right would make the process unequal.

Gays have the same right
To marry those they don't love.
Some equality!

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Heywood - I am a heterosexual. The law allows me to marry one person who is of the opposite gender. Were I homosexual, the law would also allow me to marry one person who is of the opposite gender. THERE IS NO INEQUALITY IN THE LAW IN THIS REGARD.

Now, if you want to argue that the IMPACT of the law is unequal, there's no doubt that you are correct, and this is why I think we need a change to allow for civil unions and open up the rights and privileges afforded married couples to a broader definition of "couples".

But, the argument that the law fails the equal protection clause of the constitution doesn't seem to pass muster. If the unequal impact satisfied the legal complaint of unequal protection, then someone who wanted to purchase an assault weapon could argue that the assault weapon ban is unconstitutional because it has a far greater impact on him than it does on someone who does not want to buy an assault weapon. Both persons are denied the right to buy the weapon, but only the one who wishes that right feels a negative impact from the law. I know it seems like a silly argument, but sometimes it takes a silly argument to show what is wrong with a legal argument.

The constitution does not require that the impact of legislation be equal, it requires that legislation be applied equally to all. Marriage laws that limit people to marrying one person of the opposite gender offer everyone the same right to marriage. That some people want what these laws don't allow does not--in and of itself--make the law unconstitutional.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Gays have the same right
To marry those they don't love.
Some equality!

Quote:

It may be unfortunate, but love does not figure into the law in any state statutes anywhere. There is simply no civil law that requires the people who marry to even like each other, much less love each other.

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Heywood wrote:

Scrat wrote:
Heywood wrote:
Give them equal rights. The end.

Of course, but then they already have those, as I've stated.

No, they do not.

Look here, and please give it a read, if you haven't already. It maps it out in detail.
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/og97016.pdf

If you don't see that by now, I don't know if you ever will.

The 'list' at this website is an excellent argument for why states should enact provisions for a civil union contract available to any two people or possibly a larger group. (I'll have to think 'larger groups' through a bit more.)

I do not see, however, why the traditional definition of marriage must be trashed in order to accomplish certain benefits for others. Those of us who believe traditional marriage does have a critical role in a healthy, stable society are also worthy of consideration here.

If the traditionalists can yield to allow civil unions that extend certain protections/benefits to others, a fair-minded gay community could also yield to choose a word or term other than 'marriage' for it.

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Fox... that is EXACTLY my point. Thanks for the phrasing.

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The more things change...

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